


Rallentando

by emily31594



Series: Music [7]
Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-14
Updated: 2016-01-14
Packaged: 2018-05-13 23:59:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5721973
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emily31594/pseuds/emily31594
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Regina returns from her trip to New York to a rather different welcome from what she was expecting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rallentando

Rallentando

Regina glances down at her phone as 1:06am flickers into 6:06am to reflect the time change, Regina blinking in an attempt to convince her irritated eyes that it really is morning. As she’s gathering her bag from beneath the seat and lifting it onto her lap (in preparation for grabbing her violin from the overhead compartment and making a quick getaway to her gorgeous, charming, bleary-eyed boyfriend who she hasn’t seen in six incredibly long weeks), her phone dings with a text.  
The first one to come in is from Robin. Safe flight, love. Will be waiting for you at terminal 5 with lots of coffee.  
A private smile forms on her lips as she stands with the rest of the passengers around her and reaches for her violin.  
A barrage of dings alert her to several more text messages. She glances down at her phone, perplexed.  
1:32am At hospital w Robin. Don’t freak out. It’s from John, Robin’s idiot friend who’s heart is always in the right place, but hers is hammering out of her chest right now. Don’t freak out indeed.  
A series of texts light up the screen in quick succession.  
4:17am from Tuck Dr says they’ll wait to release him until you can take him home.  
4:03am from John It’s broken.  
2:59am from Tuck Finally seeing doctor  
And they trail on from there, but as she makes her way down the aisle, mechanically lifting her violin out of the way of obstacles, adrenaline coursing through her limbs, Regina thinks there has to be an easier way to learn the story.  
She has a voicemail from John, and another from Tuck, Robin’s slightly-more-responsible, slightly-less-likely-to-send-her-into-a-panic-attack-as-he-explains friend. Rather than listen, she just hits dial.  
He picks up (blessedly) on the first ring.  
“Regina,” he greets.  
“What–”  
“He’s fine,” Tuck assures her first, and her tense muscles relax at the reassurance, her lungs filling deeply. “He has a badly broken arm, a few minor cuts and bruises, and he’s pretty high on pain meds right now, but other than that–”  
“And what, exactly, happened between ten o’clock last night and one o’clock this morning?” she asks, clearing her throat to cover the rough edge to her voice.  
“He chased after a mugger, the noble idiot,” Tuck informs her.  
“He what?” she demands, ignoring all of the curious eyes that immediately find her from the aisle and other seats, and shaking off the festering thought that he could’ve been hurt much worse than this, the idiot, what did he think he was doing?  
“You might not get a straight answer from him about why,” Tuck offers, clearly a touch amused, though he’s trying to reign it in for her sake, “At least not today. He’s a bit loopy. Rambling on to anyone who will listen about proper watering techniques for roses.”  
Regina shakes her head fondly as she lifts her violin over the head of a scurrying toddler and finally exits the plane, a smile cworking its way back onto her lips. “I suppose I’ll be taking a cab, then.”  
“Actually, I’m coming to get you. I’m nearly at the airport.”  
“Oh-thank you so much.”  
“It’s no problem,” he assures her. “I left Robin at the hospital with John and David.“  
“As long as they don’t congratulate him for being an idiot.”  
Tuck laughs quietly. “I wouldn’t count on it.”  
“No,” she admits.  
“Well, I’ll see you soon, Regina. Terminal five, right?”  
She agrees, then says goodbye and hangs up, dropping her phone and its text messages into her purse unread.  
-&-  
“I had flowers.”  
“Hm?” Regina asks Robin, turning away from the doctor with a small bottle of painkillers and a prescription for more in her hand. She brushes hair off his forehead, away from the cluster of small scrapes on one temple, softening at the way his sleepy eyes focus on her face, the hand of his good arm groping clumsily until she twines their fingers together.  
“I wanted to pick you up at the airport,” he clarifies, the words slurring together a little, “I had flowers.”  
She kisses the back of his hand, her thumb stroking his knuckles. “I saw them in the car. They’re beautiful.”  
“I water them properly,” he insists, grunting as he tries to shift on the pillows. “Did you drink the coffee?” he continues sleepily, blinking slowly as her fingers continue to thread through the front of his hair.  
She laughs softly. “I got some more on the way here. Yours from last night had gone cold.”  
“Oh.” He looks so confused that she has to fight the urge to laugh outright. Not that he’d probably notice. It seems now is not the time to bring up why, exactly, he thought it was a good idea to chase a mugger.  
“Let’s go home, and get you to bed.” she suggests, tucking the medicine and prescription into her purse along with the keys Tuck had given her before he, David, and John left.  
“Also wanted to do that,” he grumbles, his hand sliding from hers to the bend of her elbow, “but not exactly like this.”  
She presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth as she helps him stand, a sympathetic pout on her lips. “Maybe tomorrow.”  
-&-  
Robin sleeps through the lion’s share of the drive home, and Regina drives automatically, her eyes drooping a little even with the caffeine, now that they’re both almost home.  
So it startles her, just a bit, when Robin’s voice breaks into the silence.  
“You have pretty hair,” he says, his voice a little clearer but still obviously sleepy. “Like, really pretty.”  
“Thank you.” She glances over at him at a stoplight, her heart fluttering at the raw affection in his expression.  
“Have I ever told you about that time in year ten when I wanted to ask you to the ball?” he asks.  
Her lips quirk up. She’s never heard about this. “No, you haven’t. Why didn’t you ask?” she urges when he falls silent.  
“I was afraid you wouldn’t want to. Not anymore,” he rambles on, “I’m not afraid. I wanted to ask you something now. I had flowers and everything.”  
“You said,” she reminds him, wincing sympathetically when he tries to move his bad arm before he remembers that he can’t.  
He fumbles with the words, but manages to get them out, “No I was going to ask you–I was going to ask you to marry me. I was going to surprise you, and now I have to think of a new way to do that.”  
Oh. Regina bites back a laugh.  
“What’s funny?” he asks, his eyebrows forming a perplexed line.  
“You’ll realize later, Sweetheart,” she assures him, grinning at his adorable confusion, her heart pounding because she’d been expecting this for the past few months, and yet neither that nor the ruined surprise make her any less excited.  
“The ring is beautiful,” he continues, his eyes falling shut, “so perfect, one-of-a-kind, and the bloody thief…took it and…I couldn’t just…let him.”  
Oh.  
He’s dropped off to sleep like an over-exhausted puppy before she can say anything back. She’s not sure what she would say anyway, except that Tuck is right, and her boyfriend is the sweetest noble idiot she’s ever known.  
-&-  
Regina has to wake him to get him inside, and she slings his arm across her shoulders for the walk to the door of their house in a far-out London suburb and up to their bedroom on the second floor, lest he wander off in his drug-induced haze, or slip on the stairs and break something else.  
She deposits him on the bed first with instructions to stay put, and then heads to the bathroom to fill a small glass with water and offers him his next dose of painkiller, though she keeps the water in her hand. Lifting full glasses of water with his non-dominant hand is probably something best left for tomorrow.  
“I love you,” he sighs happily as she tugs off his boots and jeans, the pain and medicine and night without sleep catching up to him, his sea-blue eyes that she’s missed so much drooping. She slows for a moment, running her thumb across his lips and tracing under his eyes as she says softly, “I love you, too.”  
“Get in bed with me?” he requests, his hand resting on her waist as she fixes his pillows and blankets and makes a pile of pillows where he can elevate his injured arm..  
“In a minute,” she promises, dropping a kiss to his lips. She trades his leather jacket and the paper-thin shirt from the hospital for a button-up pajama shirt that will be easy to work around his cast, then lifts the covers and helps him fully into bed. He looks pale on the white sheets, but comfortable, and she trusts that a few hours of sleep will leave him feeling much, much better. Robin is forever taking care of her, making her food at odd hours of the night, massaging out the kinks in her neck that come with so many hours of violin, teasing out her smile when she’s in a darker mood. Liquid warmth pools in her belly as he lies there, watching her with grateful, tired eyes. Today, it’s her turn.  
Once he’s settled, she toes off her own flats, leaving her dark jeans and sweater and bra on the chair in favor of one of his large T-shirts. She pads to the bathroom for a moment to wash her face, then tugs her hair free of the braids that have kept it curled and pinned to her head since last night.  
She crawls into bed on his left side when she’s done, completely spent.  
“How was your last concert?” he slurs, his palm warm and heavy and comforting on her waist.  
“It went well.” She tucks her face into his neck, careful of the darkening bruise on his jaw. “We’ll talk about it later,” she promises. “Go to sleep.”  
-&-  
Regina wakes to early afternoon sunlight streaming into their west-facing bedroom. Robin’s beside her still, but he must have shifted in the hours they’ve slept, because she’s no longer curled into his side.  
That’s when she notices the black velvet of a small jewelry box resting on his chest. She grins. He fell back asleep waiting for her to wake so he could ask her. The idiot.  
She reaches over, lifts the box gently from his chest, cracks it open, and slides the ring onto her finger, depositing the ring box quietly on the bedside table. She curls into his side happily, her left hand on his ribs as she drifts back to sleep.  
-&-  
When she next wakes, it is to Robin’s fingers smoothing through the waves of her recently-braided hair.  
She smiles, her nose wrinkling and then smoothing, her eyes fluttering open slowly.  
“Feeling better?” she asks.  
“Much.”  
Her eyes find his. He very nearly takes her breath away. Good God, how she’s missed this these past weeks.  
His hand leaves her hair to grasp her left hand instead, his fingers on the back of her hand and his thumb rubbing circles into her palm. “Waking up to this didn’t hurt.”  
“Good, then,” she smiles sleepily, “I can tell you. You’re a terrible thief.”  
He chuckles, his pointer finger tapping against her ring, “So are you.”  
“It is a perfect ring,” she admits, though he probably doesn’t even remember telling her as much, “But my fiancee can’t to anything that stupid ever again.” The word feels natural on her tongue. Like it was meant to happen. As does his radiant, breathtaking smile.  
He shifts as much as he can to give her room to move closer, tilting his head down as she brings her mouth to his. They kiss languidly, soaking up each others’ presence, everything anxious and stressed and lonely settling into this place, and touch, and moment. She hooks an ankle around his leg, her hand sliding up his chest and onto his neck, their noses knocking together from their tired clumsiness, leaving them both laughing quietly.  
Regina pulls back after a couple of minutes, curling back into his side. He asks haltingly, presumably as pieces of the memory return “Did I–tell you I was still going to make it a surprise?”  
“Indeed.”  
His grin is sheepish, but happy. So happy. “Well, I suppose that’s not going to happen.”  
Her eyes dance. “I don’t think so, no.”  
He circles her lips with his thumb, then traces her nose, her brow. “I missed you so much.”  
“I missed you, too.”  
“I’m sorry I didn’t get to pick you up,” he laments.  
His lungs fill and empty beneath her, leaving her sleepy and affectionate and content. “Why?” she teases sleepily, “were you looking forward to another tryst in an airport toilet?”  
“Mmm,” he makes a show of considering it, concluding, “Perhaps.”  
“Next time,” she promises, her palm settling over his heart.  
He frowns, shifting and covering her hand with his, sliding his fingers between hers. “Not too soon.”  
“Sounds good to me,” she agrees, yawning.  
Robin shifts his right arm from the pillows, and grimaces audibly.  
“Time for more medicine?”  
“I suppose,” he sighs.  
“The celebratory engagement and reunion sex might have to wait a day or two, love,” she says sympathetically, slipping into his nickname for her, and turning so that she can retrieve the bottle from the bedside table.  
He stares at her hand where she’s spinning the ring absent-mindedly, seems to soak up what she knows is a radiant smile on her own lips. “It was worth it.”


End file.
